“Archaeology”

rests opn the three principles above: broken, place, grammar (or only the first two?)

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A definition

Etymologically, the term “archaeology” refers to the way in which we “speak” (-logy) about an object that is generally uderstood as “ancient” (archaeo-) – just as “theology” refers to speaking about god, “sociology” about society, “epistemology” about knowledge.

We should further define these two terms.

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Ancient (“archaeo-“)

By “ancient” one generally refers to what I call a broken tradition, an antiquity detached from our experience. for which there are no living carriers. It is in this sense that “archaeology” differs, in common understanding, from “history,” which includes a past with which we can more easily identify.

An essential dimension is that these “ancient data” be elements of material culture tied to space. This adds an important element in the distinction from “history,” which considers all data, whether of material culture or not, whether from a broken or a living tradition.

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Epistemics (“-logy”)

“Speaking” entails a form of knowledge. It refers, in other words, to an epistemic process: how do we know the object about which we are speaking?

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Contextual archaeology